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Simon Offers $10 Billion for General Growth

By

Kris Hudson

Updated Feb. 17, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Simon Properties Group Inc., already the nation's largest shopping-mall owner, made a $10 billion bid to acquire rival General Growth Properties Inc., which is seeking to emerge from bankruptcy proceedings, in a takeover effort that could alter the retail landscape in hundreds of American communities.

If its bid is successful, Simon, which started in 1960 with a single property in Bloomington, Ind., would sit atop an empire of 550 malls—at least a third of the U.S. market. More important, it would own nearly half of the country's...

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